


I HAVE BROKEN MY BONES AND TORN OUT MY EYES

by Pinnacle of Failure (Cromirn)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Blood, Borderline Personality Disorder, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Gen, Gore, OC probably has some sort of bipolar personality disorder and borderline personality disorder, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Tagged just to be safe, Violence, i should really highlight the blood and gore and violence, like im not fucking kidding around here, like that shit is detailed as all fuck here, like wayyyy later, most of the characters mentioned dont come until later, there is a lot of gore and violence towards children and adults
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2019-08-25 00:11:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16650568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cromirn/pseuds/Pinnacle%20of%20Failure
Summary: Death backfired on her. She's pretty damn sure that no one's supposed to be born again after they know they died, after they willingly let themselves go. But, she's not one to throw away the lemons that life gives her, so she's gonna make the most delicious lemon juice she can, reaping what isn't hers and taking life by the throat and telling it to let her die.Because one life wasn't enough, one lemon or one death. It wasn't enough. It's never enough.





	1. the end of the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> i aint messing around here, read the damn tags

She understood she was dead before her heart stopped beating.

It’s not like what they tell her. There’s no heaven, no hell. There’s only coldness; the shiver in her bones, the frost licking at her eyelashes and chin. 

She doesn’t know how it happened. Maybe she fell the wrong way on a particularly rough patch of ice, or maybe she got in a car accident. It’s doesn’t really matter at the moment, though.

Nothing matters at the moment, the empty space leaving her with little to nothing to do, the cold nipping at her heels like an angry bitch. It’s dark too, she can’t see her hands or anything else of her. 

She understands that she is dead, her flesh isn’t what it used to be, her heart doesn’t flutter at a particularly bad memory. 

It changes every time she thinks about it. Death. It’s fickle, changing its ways on whims that she doesn’t understand. It’s the end of her story, and she’s fine with that. Everything has to end, but not like this.

Never like this.

Something shifts in the air, twisting and turning and pushes her in ways that she thought was impossible. It coils in her chest and down her gut, leaving a wake of fire in its path. It seeps into her bones, pouring itself in between her joints and every crevice it can find.

It burns through her being, warming her through the coldness of the expanse. It stretches her out like a rubber band, and she can feel herself reach her breaking points.

And like the rubber band, she breaks. It sears through her, scorching closest pain. Its hands reach the darkest part of her, leaving her burnt and dry.

It hurts.

It… _hurts_.

She’s dragged herself from the slums of the world, molding herself into perfection, into her own perfection, and changed the way she lived to better herself from her family and everything she once was. She has never felt such a pain like this before, but something inside her tells her that this is wrong, that she is wrong and that she is not real.

She knows she’s dead. Whatever that is left of her gut is not wrong.

But it’s the blow to her meager ego that sends her the wrong direction. She’s never really felt wrong about herself, what she defines herself as. It’s such an elementary thought process that she wonders if her soul has wondered into some prepubescent boys body and decided to leave her out of the loop.

Actually, that would explain so much.

Confusion, when she was alive, was much like a snake, it’d hit you with its teeth, grappling onto your mind and coiling its long, nasty body around you. You wouldn’t be able to move, you couldn’t, you shouldn’t. It would only get tighter from there on, pushing you into a frenzy and pulling back, retreating from the horrors of your mind because it doesn't want that. It doesn’t want your fear, it wants your _chaos_.

But she’s dead now, and the confusion isn’t a snake no more, but now it’s a bull, an angry stallion rearing and hooves ready to strike you down. It hits her, and now it wants her fear. No longer is the chaos a part of mind, but only pain and fear and the sweet and sick smell of bowels and maybe more. 

Or maybe it, just maybe(just _maybe_ ), life wants her to live. 

Maybe(just maybe) she has a second chance.

Maybe(maybe), she is born from the moon and blood and maybe more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> making the tags made me realize how fucked up Tsukiko is tbh
> 
> like i was going over her personality and that made me go 'wait a fucking minute' *insert squinty eyes*
> 
> not to mention the fact that this version will be much more hardcore, like it's gonna be a fucking hassle moving everything from ffn to here so why not make it 1000X worse? ik, ik, im a horrible person.
> 
> probably the most that ive ever tagged anything.
> 
> also, if your from ffn(i highly doubt lol) and have read the original work, then i will be glad to inform that the chapters are gonna be far, far longer because ill be mashing them up together. the work on ffn had like 14 chapters and 80k words and hashirama and madara and everyone else doesn't come until chapter 11 or something. the first canon character that tsukiko meets is kakuzu in like chap 7 or 8 or something.
> 
> like i aint gonna be pushing their meeting any closer than the work on ffn bc i think its complete bull that a SI OC is able to meet a canon character within the first few year of their life, and i love sticking w the realism a litlle bit(like you havent read the fucking tags).
> 
> so, yea, have fun reading the mess that is Tsukiko, don't get lost on your way in bc shit goes up, then down, then sideways and then it transcends reality a lil.
> 
> if uve read any of my other works(like the disjointed realities trilogy) then you will know how shit can transend the realm of horror and into that of what ever unspeakable force there is out there


	2. again

She is a peculiar child. She was one the first time around, but now that it seems that she has absolute control over her actions this time, she’s gonna take it all as she can. She’s never thought that she could be this cruel to people before, biting their fingers and scratching them with her baby nails, or puking on them or hold a shit until they change her diaper. It’s fun, she has to admit, but that fucking snake of confusion is here again, and this time it won’t let her go.

In her first life, she handled change pretty well. The only thing that she was good at was adapting, molding herself to the perfect employee, the perfect neighbor for everyone she had. It’s simple, just a little observation( _spying_ , a small part of her mind quips, _there was no observation_ ) and some food usually did it for everyone. 

But she’ll admit that she’s missing something. They’re not important to her character, to her mental stability or whatever, but she knows that she’s… forgetting. Forgetting what her mother looked like(not like that was ever important, she never liked her mother), what her brother looked like(she did like him, for all his flaws, he at least understood what she wanted. What she needed in a sibling), and her friends(this is the kick to the balls, right here, she loved her friends. She wants her friends to be happy and healthy. Knowing that she’s died probably hurt them harder than if she were still alive).

(In this, she understands that forgetfulness is normal. Being gone for so long can do that to a person. She still remembers things, the good and the bad, the nice and warm and the cold and pain, she still remembers. And she wonders if it’s worth it.)

Her new ‘parents’ are nice. A little on the off side, to be honest, they don’t seem to know what to do and that makes her wonder if her mom was like this. It’s… fun having this much free time. No one to get in her way.

Time isn’t real to her, she doesn’t sleep for days, and when she does she’s out like she’s dead again. This gives her many advantages, adjusting to this new body, learning the new language, memorizing every inch of their house. Everything is so _intricate_ here, she could spend days staring at a wall, memorizing the details placed in the paper walls and the floral designs embedded in the wood paneling.

But she hates it when her parents wake her up, their constricted faces showcasing their worrying for their new daughter and their hands at her face. That’s probably the only downside. Being disturbed from her long wanted sleep is something that is not exactly unpunishable.

The first year flew by uneventfully. Her hair grew(and _damn_ did it grow) and so did she. She can walk now, and somewhat talk(there’s still the rough accent, though, and she really doesn’t mind if it fades away when she gets older. Shit happens and it’s adapt or die. Do or don’t and one has a highway straight to dead in the ditch) and she has some more, albeit _limited_ , freedom. She also has teeth now. _Teeth_.

She’d never thought that she’d be happy to have teeth.

Her name is still a finicky thing for her. Sometimes she’s called _Musume_ or _Kodomo_ by her father, and by her mother she’s called _Tsukiko_ , all of which she considers her name. Sometimes she has an uncle or aunt or other family member come by, and they call her _Kodomo_ or _Itoko_ or _Mei_ or even _Mago_. 

She doesn’t know which means what, but she does know that all of the other children call her Tsukiko, and when she meets someone knew her family addresses her as such. This is too much for her little, simple mind.

If she could remember what she was the last life, maybe she’d give herself a name, or if she remembered anything besides the actions and the words then she’d use her supposed friends' names instead, but the only thing that remains are the ashes of what once was a beautiful forest. You can’t identify a tree by its ashes, but you can still appreciate the ash flowing in your hands.

Her family thinks she is a comedical one. She talks about everything and nothing, and yet she manages to get a point across with a nonsensical whim of innocence and youth. Her words are warped with her accent, a stutter mostly, but they don’t pay much attention to it. One cousin likes to mock her about her ‘lisp’, but he’s taken care of easily when she doesn’t look or talk to him anymore.

Eventually shit does go down. She is oblivious to much of what goes around, but she does keep a mental catalog about some events. People come and people go, and there’s only a handful that actually do look at her, this old, wrinkly man who smells like clam chowder and black mold. He gives her the creeps, but she likes talking to him. 

He’d give her an answer and more, and he’d always gives her more than she needs. Information. Knowledge. The sacred texts of her clan. She can’t read just yet, but he’d promise her the ability but told her that it takes time and dedication to do so. She’d always loved reading, and promptly accepted his words. The next week after he tells her about the books, the scrolls, he sent her parents to a woman. She’s a frail old thing, hair thinning and white in her age.

Her name’s Asagetsu. The old woman calls her Tsukiko, and only accepts that as her name. She shows her how it’s written, all of the ways that it can be written and pronounced.

Tsukiko is her given name, and she already loves it. Asagetsu shows her what it means, taking her for nights on end and showing her the moon in the sky. She loves the sky.

But, an old lady can't stop the world for one measly girl. 

It goes like this. She is four, fresh from reading poems and theorizing their meaning with Asagetsu, makeshift binder in hand and papers peeking out from the edge. 

She places the books all over, no discernable way to decipher why they would be placed there. Chronological by the dates she got them, by the dates they had been written, alphabetical, A to Z, Z to A, there is no promise of sanity in which she categorizes her studies, her books.

Asagetsu doesn’t understand it, but she lets the girl be. It’s better to be unorganized and unpredictable than to be one with the populous. Than to be one of the hive-mindedness that has taken over the world from the beginning.

Studying is hard. It’s meant to be hard, to challenge the student and to challenge the teacher if, or when, the student surpasses expectations in a way that suggests that this is just a review of what was already known.

Tsukiko is a bright child. She catches on quickly, and is nimble with her hands. There is nothing that she can’t comprehend and dissect, that she can’t take in her hands and hold it to the world.

It’s the socializing that gets to her. She doesn’t know how to be a child, and it’s enough for Asagetsu to know that Tsukiko isn’t an infant. She doesn’t think Tsukiko is even human.

The children think she is weird, and the ones who can’t speak yet cry and scream in her presence. They’re not mean, but they’re cautious around her. Tsukiko doesn’t look like she minds any of this at all.

Asagetsu is old, but Tsukiko is even older. There is a deep wiseness, an ancient being that resides next to her soul, squishing the younger into compliance, into submissiveness. She knows that something is wrong with the ancient being, the way she talks is mixed and her words are a jumbled mess. They say the ancient ones spoke another tongue, and Asagetsu knows that it is what Tsukiko speaks when she sleeps, when she bites her tongue to learn the new characters of hiragana and kanji.

Everything is a mess, things go missing for some time before they appear exactly where they disappeared. Sometimes things don’t come back at all. It’s the books that first start missing, then pens and papers, then scalpels and needles. The thread is next, and blank pieces of paper. Otoha, the neighbor with the sheep, says that some nights sheep ends up slaughtered on her front porch, flowers resting on top of the often mutilated head and scattered over the skinned body. There is often a bucket of its wool at the front door.

None of this connects to Tsukiko, but the ancient being is enough to stir caution in Asagetsu. Who knows which being the ancient one is, who knows what fear and destruction it could bring to the world, to the clan. The thought alone sends Asagetsu into a fit of giddiness.

The young girl, all of the white hair and yellow eyes, begins her days early. It’s early enough where everyone is asleep, where no one can disturb the girl and her mentor. She grabs unread books, paper, an inkwell and quill and begins to diligently read in her little corner away from the world. She prints down the words she doesn’t know, and seeks out dictionaries and other books with the word in the title if Asagetsu happens to have it.

Literature is rare in this world of war, but Tsukiko is a bright child, and bright children deserve the knowledge of the past. It’s under Asagetsu’s tutelage that Tsukiko learns, that she changes.

When the sun rises, Tsukiko is told to climb the walls with her bare hands and feet. Her toes are scraped and bleeding, but the Kaguya never feel pain, they never feel fear. Tsukiko takes everything to the next level, her glee in her own pain an obvious end to the means. The look in her pale face shows that she wants the pain, to feel closer to human, maybe?

At noon, they bandage her feet. They may be barbaric serial murders and blatantly participate in national genocide, but they know how to take care of their children. Sort of. When the sun begins to fall, she goes back to the books. Asagetsu leaves her be for this part, Tsukiko is particularly good with dictionaries.

After that, she leaves for home.

Her mother waits for her halfway home, worry in her voice and anxiety covering her red. A red mother is never a good mother.

She holds something in her hands, something silver and white, chained and beaded. Tsukiko thinks it some sort of rosary, then some ritualistic necklace(a fucking rosary in name, but maybe less meaningful?) but she knows that it’s anything but. The only thing they worship here is the fog and the snow.

There is an air of weariness and this rushed sort of feeling around her mother that Tsukiko can’t resist the urge to run up to her mother, circling her arms around her legs. “What’s wrong, mama?” she asks, head tilted back to look at her yellow eyes.

Mama hesitates, “Something has happened, my child,” she says, leaning down to kneel in the mucky soil, her yukata soaking up the mud and grime, “you might have to leave for some time, a-and we might not to see you again.”

She knows what she means by that, but she also knows that she’s missing out on important details. Where is she going? Who’ll be taking her? What will she be doing? She plays stupid. “But I want to stay here,” she complains, her voice high and wavering. It’s not a lie, but the curiosity does gnaw at her gut.

Her mom takes her by the face, gently pinching her cheeks. Something she does when she’s anxious; scared. “I know, sweetheart, I know, but things are changing. Things have to change and I can’t do anything about it. I- I did my best, the best thing for you.”  
“What do you mean?” She’s four, and she is smart. Mama knows this. She should, at least.

“You are leaving, Tsu-chan, and- it won't be easy, you won’t see papa or I anymore, you won’t see your friends, Asagetsu, no one. I don’t know where you’ll go, I’m not sure if I want to, but- but it’s the safest for you. The safest for us all.”

Tsukiko is momentarily lost, her little child's mind caught by the flutter of leaves of the willow trees, but that small part of her that keeps her her, that reminds her of the past that might not be hers, catches on to the words but doesn’t understand. She says the only word she can truly rely on. “Why?”

Mama sighs, and presses her forehead to hers, “Under a new reign we must change. Takeo-sama usurped his father, killed him in his sleep, and now he leads the clan under his name.”

Tsukiko knows how unhonorable it is to kill someone in their sleep, to have their last moments missed out on the thrill of the fight. She knows that disgrace now stains Takeo-sama’s name, but that doesn't mean that he can’t rule them. That he can’t change his father's decades-old rule over them.

Tyranny is nothing new, fights break out everywhere you step, and the sole purpose of the clan is to kill, to maim, to leave all dead and broken. Tsukiko is no stranger to fights, both in her favor and not, in this body and the last, but she doesn’t have that kind of motivation or anger to pull her towards the inanity of starting a fight, clashes against neighbor or relative.

“What’s happening, mama?” Her language isn’t perfected yet(she doubts it ever will be) but this is the most she can do.

“You are special, my little moon, he wants you, and I-” she chokes up, “I don’t want him to take my child. You are the only one who’s lived this long, the only on to walk and talk and hug, you’re the only one.”

Her small hands reaches up and slides to her scalp, and she curls her fingers in her mother's black hair. She yanks softly and croons. “I’m here, mama,” at least she can remember the right words when she needs them. “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, my moon, I didn’t try hard enough, I wasn’t strong enough.” She grabs Tsukiko into a hug, and pushes her head into the crook of her neck. She sniffles, and Tsukiko doesn’t move her hands away from the dark locks of hair. 

Her mother's hair is unnaturally soft.

They stand like that for a short moment, then they depart from each others hold. Mama doesn’t look so happy.

“They said they’ll take you tonight, darling, and that I might see you once every so often. I don’t want that to happen- I just- I won’t let it happen- ”

“Mama,” she mutters, her voice low, “mama, I don’t understand.”

“They’re taking you away from me, they’re- they’re taking away my own child, they’re taking you away, Tsukiko, I don’t- they can’t do this!” She begins to get hysterical, and Tsukiko watches, interested in her words and her motions, mama’s hands are more expressive than her face, more in motion than the rest of her body. “I won’t let them, they can’t- you’re my baby, they can’t take my baby away from me, I promise, they won’t take you away.”

“Mama,” she repeats, and Tsukiko can feel herself being lifted into her mother's arms, and she’s hurried somewhere. Home, she supposes. “Why do they want me.”

Her mama doesn’t have time to speak, her legs working to hard, moving too fast, “You are special, you are my special girl, they want you for the power you have inside. I won’t let them, I swear, I swear they won’t have you!”

Soon enough they reach home, fog blurring the lines of where it begins and where it ends. It only thickens the closer they reach the door, and Tsukiko can see the fog curl and twist and pool into the hallway as the door creaks opens. It dances across the paneling, and swirls up the walls and begins to slowly dissipate.

Her mother still holds her tightly.

It’s not until later that night when someone knocks on their door. Father isn’t home, he usually isn’t, but Tsukiko can feel her mama’s heart begin to speed beneath her chest. Mother knows how to fight with a bow, most of the women are taught that the moment they can hold something. The walk to the door is long and unnecessarily dragged out. Mama’s feet scuffle against the floor in her trepidation. Tsukiko clings to her mother like a little koala baby, and she has no qualms with removing herself away from the warmth.

The door is slow to open, and the thick fogs pours in again, billowing neatly besides mama’s legs. If Tsukiko’s arms were long enough, she imagines that she would be able to feel the cool mist between her fingers while still in her mother's arms.

Clothes rustle as mama tightens her hold on Tsukiko, her grip bruising and making it harder for her to breath. It constricts her lungs, and Tsukiko feels quarantined but not like a rabid animal or the misbehaving dog she sees every so often, but like one of those warm downy feather blankets she used to have when she was still alive.

“We are here for your daughter, Chie-san.”

“She is my only baby, please let me say my goodbyes first.” Her mother's voice is light and wispy, nothing more a whisper against Tsukiko’s ear.

“Lord Takeo insisted that she be… sleeping while we transfer her. He will not be happy if he finds out that you woke her up.”

There is a spark of dry humor that lights up in her throat, and that thing at the back of her mind snarls something incognetable. It mocks them for their stupidity and their unwillingness to stray from orders. Her mother knows she’s awake. Her mother knows what she’s like, who she is.

“She hasn’t slept in so long, sir,” her mother mutters against her hair, cheek rubbing against her scalp in a way that hushes the voices, the pressure in her skull, “She’s awake right now. It might not look like it, but she’s still here, she’s still conscious in my arms.”

The floorboards creak underneath the man, his weight shifting from one leg to the other, irritation lacing his voice, “Lord Takeo will not be happy about this, Miss Chie. Children are calmer and easier to handle when they wake up in an unfamiliar place than if they were to be taken in the middle of the day. It’s for the child’s safety and to help ease them into the new lifestyle directed by the teachers and the clan head.”

Mama croons a part of a lullaby in Tsukiko’s hair, rocking back and forth, before settling with her words. “My moon, so precious and dear to me, I will see you again, when things are dead and things are new. My moon, oh, my moon, I promise on the stars I’ll see you again.”

“Chie-san,” the man exasperates, “Hand over the child, while the sun is still up.”

“My moon,” she repeats, “She’s my little moon and she’ll come back. She’ll- She’ll come back.” Mama sniffles, and Tsukiko can feel tears drip down on her hair. Her hold on her mama tightens, and she croons something into her chest. The man sighs.

Tsukiko feels another set of arms wrap themselves round her, and she is tugged and she thrashes. “NO!”

It’s her voice that shouts, and it’s her scream that tears through the once calm air. His hands are on her, and she doesn’t like it, they’re too warm, burning and holding her too tightly. She digs her nails in his wrists, and twists her body to look at him, to bury her nails in his face and pull at his ears.

He brings her closer, trapping her arms underneath his own, and doesn’t even grunt as she kicks and worms around in his grasp.

“Mama!” She cries out, reaching her arms out longer than they can reach, straining to get back to mama, to get back to the place she called home.


	3. inchoate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unedited for the most part.
> 
> previous chapters might be updated to fix some plotholes mentioned here.

She is beyond herself, in this world, in this place. What will it take, she wonders, to go back home--away from all of this, away from the hostility, the competition. There is a beauty in the sorrow, it seems. People( _children_ , something screeches, _they are children. Children!_ ) look at her and not in the way that she is new to this place, the rotting planks of wood they call walls, the dirt floors, falling ceiling. It’s dank, the air stiff with untold stories and hostility. A rotting desk sits at the middle part of the wall, and the rest of the place seems to be in the same condition.

Can she make sense of this? No, she knows that much. No, because there is no sense after death.

Her captor tosses her at the ground, and she barely has to straighten herself out and stand before hands are on her. They are small hands, smaller than her own, and they pull at her hair, touch her face, pulling, feeling, _taking_. Her hands grab the wrist that takes a piece of parchment, and twists until something pops. The child screeches, and they all disperse.

Her parchment is wrinkled, but it is nothing she can’t fix.

“Sleep,” the man tells them and leaves again. She watches with keen eyes as he locks the door, and knows it should be easy to break back open. If she wanted to leave, of course.

One of the pale, white haired children creeps up to her, their footsteps disturbing the soil underneath, “Who are you? I’m Kyoko.”

She doesn’t answer, but she nods her head in acknowledgment. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone, she wants to go home, she wants to make her own life away from these people, she wants so much yet she can’t deliver. Cocking her hip out, Tsukiko tilts her head up. The roof is in no better quality, holes littering and planks still hanging by tendrils. 

An older and taller, lanky child scuffles around, eyes wide and lips tight in a frown. “Anyone know where Chinatsu is? I think she might’ve left somehow.”

“No, stupid,” a smaller girl scowls behind a chair, voice low yet childish, rough yet young, “I’m right here. I would have left a _loong_ time ago if I knew how to get out.”

“Do you know what they’ll do to us? Mama said that I should be a good girl and listen to them like I do to mama,” Kyoko says, moving closer to Tsukiko, “Mama never lets me listen to anyone but her. I’m scared.”

Tsukiko holds back a sigh and busies herself with fiddling with her parchment, smoothing out the lines. Two children eye at it, envy obviously hiding behind their green eyes.

“Your mama doesn’t sound all too bright,” Chinatsu mutters, dragging the chair to a corner and sitting behind it. She does not want to be seen. “I say we run. We gotta get out.”

“I don’t think there’s much we can do,” A nameless kid speaks, from the back, voice soft yet unwavering. “I don’t know what we can do, the door is locked. No door can be unlocked without a key.”

Chinatsu snarls, and throws herself at the child. A fight breaks out, Kyoko jumps away initially then tosses herself at the fray, the tall lanky one tears Chinatsu from her opponent, but is taken down by a bulky, squat boy who seems a year older than the oldest one here. Tsukiko tosses herself out of the mess, and notices some other children eyeing her as they try to avoid the hits. 

At some point, someone has their fist entangled in Chinatsu’s hair, face showing the first signs of a bruise, the puffiness turning her mean gaze to everyone. Tsukiko knows what she is seeing, what Chinatsu sees. They are all enemies in her small world, and Tsukiko can’t blame her.

Time moves on its own when she recedes into her mind, flowing past her fluidly like water, the bumps and screams smothered and suffocated by the melodies that push against her mind as she tries to remember who she is, who she once was, and what she could be.

She is not a child, that much is clear. Nor is she an adult, she knows that much.

What is she?

Is she still human, or did that humanity leave her in the womb and she is now destined to live a life in animalistic pain and hunger?

She wants to know.

Not as Tsukiko. Not as Kodomo. Not as Itoko.

Who is she. Where is she, why is she here when she could be sleeping, the morning dew licking at the rice paper walls as the mist rolls in for the first time that day, when she could be making dinner with mama and hugging her slim legs as she talks about Asagetsu-san and tell her about how to write and read and deduct from what she knows.

She wants that again.

The door is slammed open, waking her from her pseudo-slumber.

“Get up, get up,” one of the men scowls, white hair trimmed close to one side of his head while the other is styled in the traditional Kaguya style. He grabs one of the children closest to him, Kyoko she thinks, and begins to push them out the door, making his way closer to where Tsukiko is curled up. He takes no notice when she hisses at him, but she feels like he pushed her a little harder than the others after her initial reaction. 

There are three more people outside, one man and two women, all white haired and green eyed. The taller of the women scowls, her teeth pointed and clearly not natural, scars litter her arms and throat where the skin is exposed as her tattered, green qipao sleeves are shredded and, in some parts, hanging by a mere thread. 

Just looking at the bundle of children her scowl deepens. “Children are supposed to learn by experience,” she starts, voice the sort of husky that suggests she had just been yelling and shouting, “Not by beating the bitch out of them.”

The man who lead them out of the shed sighs, and Tsukiko can see he was resisting the urge to pinch his nose, “You know Takeo-sama doesn’t like it when someone doubts him. He said it worked for him, so this is how things are going to be like from on.”

“I agree with Hideaki,” the other woman speaks up, her voice a little softer, but with that small edge that Tsukiko doesn’t trust. The children begin to get antsy. “But there are better ways to gather up children than taking them the middle of night and leaving them in a shed for six hours.”

“Takeo-sama is still getting used to ruling over the clan, you know this, Tamami,” Hideaki grumbles, and pulls something from his own tattered sleeve, the pocket inside somehow still operational. The angle Tsukiko is at makes it hard for her to see what he has, but she hears the familiar rustle of a scroll being unclasped and opened. He hands the thing to the other man left in the group.

He silently takes it from Hideaki, and begins to read, “Under the name of Kaguya Takeo; Hirokuni, Yui, Tamami, and Hideaki shall take all of the shikotsumyaku children above the ages of three years old, or those able to access their chakra, or able to access their given specialty. This must be done quickly and effectively, treat the children with that of a war brother or sister, and take them to the bend of the Saidan River the dusk the day you have acquired all of what has been requested.” He reads off.

“Where are they t-taking us?” one of the children, Chokichi, whispers, “I don’t know where we’re going, and they’re just _talking_ like nothings wrong!”

"Because," Chinatsu scowls, pushing her way to the older boy, greens eyes locked on his scrawny form, "That's how they do things around here. Once they've got everything ready then they'll start the actual hurt, the pain, whatever you call it."

Something Hideaki says causes Tamami to strike him, the smack loud hard enough she breaks flesh. One of the children flinch hard enough they start to weep. There is about thirteen of them, and Tsukiko's gut curls. She has a feeling that things are not going to be happy.

"I get it, I get it, damn," Hideaki growls, raising his hands up, "Just tryna be funny, y'know?"

"No," Tamami snaps, "This is complete bull, they're children not tools. Let them be children now and weapons later, there is absolutely no need for this shit."

"Tamami, calm down," the other woman says, voice almost a whisper, "Hideaki is just an ass, and so is everyone else. But you know what Takeo-sama is like, there is no getting past something when he pulls the face that he did when he-"

"We get it, Yui, we get it," there is a sharp sigh, and a rustle somewhere. Someone hits something and there's a grunt, thud, and there is a fight. Tangles of limbs flash from the peripherals of Tsukiko's eyes and Tamami and Yui fight, no grace in their movements only pure anger and murderous intent leaking into their every being.

"Ladies!" Hirokuni, scroll still in hand, snips, "It's time that we take the children to the assigned destination. We don't have much time until the sun starts to set."

They corral the children closer together, shoulders touching hands wandering, Tsukiko holds her tongue, the sensation of her physical body not like it used to be. This is wrong, she is wrong, they are all wrong.

~~~

The suns rims barely touch the empty horizon, the bogland painted red in its fall. Toads croak, crickets sing, and the children weep. There's certain emotion this all brings, but there is no name given to it: such a thing would make it real, and this is all but that.

The four adults don't say much when they reach what looks like another shack, this time multi-roomed and rotting from the outside in. Moss grows on the exterior, and Chinatsu makes a noise between a snarl and a whimper when her eyes dance across what looks like the remains of a human carcass, bones caved in the hollow chest and shoulder shattered. The moss as also taken to it.

"Where are we?" Chokichi asks, and Yui shoots him a damnable look.

They nudge the children in, pointedly ignoring their gazes. Inside the shack is colder than it was outside, the floor is mud that squelches when you twist your foot, and the bigger ones have trouble getting their foot out of the all-taking soil.

The walls are caved in some parts, and there is a chunk of ceiling that is missing exposing the orange and blue and purple sky, and a thing that looks all too much like a nest of bees. Or a skull, tacted to the wall to scare off potential, humanoid intruders.

None of those--the corpse resting forever at the foot of a door, the skull nailed to the wall, hair still attached and flesh still bubbling at the forever resting place--changes Tsukiko in any meaningful way, or affect her in a way that could tell any other human that she has seen this. She has, and she knows that she will until she dies a horrible and probably slow death somewhere dank and icy.

Yui takes the lead, entering a back room hidden behind a thin and broken paper wall, shuffling around before something clicks and creaks. She comes back out, and motions with a hand to one of her comrades to do something. Hideaki grasps the arm of Chokichi, roughly pushing him towards Yui while the other grabs another child, muttering underneath his breath _'come on, one, two, three. Three, two, one. Go on, go on, don't be slow'._

Tsukiko is somewhere in the middle line, and his hands are large against her arm, smudges dirt on her pretty green qipao, and for a moment(just a small, small moment) does she finally feel something in her tell her that he has done something wrong. She shouldn't be here, she should be with her mother, clean, fed, safe and secure. It only lasts a small moment, but it is smothered in the back of her mind when Yui picks her up with practiced ease and drops her down a trapdoor on the floor.

The ground is slimy, the walls short and dented, and the ceiling caves down. The wall opposite to where she is tunnels out steeply down, and beyond that she can’t see any signs of life.

Another white haired Kaguya is at the bottom of her short fall, catching her with a huff and throwing her to the side as Kyoko screeches down. Two more people stand at the edges, one wearing a red ruqun and the other some sort of nobility hanfu. Only one of them is like the rest, white haired, and she doesn't look all too happy, hands shoved in her wide sleeves and hair done up nicely.

Her companions eyes seek the children's gaze with a hungry look that sets off all too many alarms in Tsukiko's mind, especially when his green eyes meets hers, but it doesn't last all too long before he inspects Kyoko and the next fallen child with an all too invested look.

Tsukiko makes way to the cluster of children, knowing better than to stray from the pack and risk him looking at her longer. Five minutes pass before their escorts jump down with the rest of them and kneel in front of the black haired man in the room.  
"Takeo-sama," Hirokuni starts, voice loud and clear and resonating a form of respect that Tsukiko can tell is forced and unwanted, "Here are all of the children you have requested."

Takeo lifts a hand, "Hirokuni-san, Yui-san, Tamami-san, Hideaki-san, I thank you all for taking on such a task. I know many of the Kaguya clan do not respect me, but I have faith that you will follow in order in this test. I, also, know that many do not respect my choice in starting this new tradition, but I believe _full heartedly_ that this will prove better in the development in our clan structure and strengthen our bonds to the Moon and Land."

Tamami drops her head further. Kyoko whimpers audibly, frightened. Tsukiko, confused, brings her hands in front of her and begins to fiddle with her fingers, playing with her thumb, dragging a nail underneath another.

(She begins to ponder what she’s here for. She knows she knew a while ago, maybe longer than she initially thinks. But she can’t remember. Maybe it is the elevation change, that could be a valid answer. But she is not too sure. She is never too sure, now that she thinks about it, but nothing seems to surprise her. Nothing seems new when she knows they are.)

“It has been a pleasure working under you, Takeo-sama,” Hideaki says blithely, a sharp edge to his voice that he doesn’t hide, “But I, personally, would like to help further, if that is what you would ask of me.”

Takeo tilts his head, a coy smile playing at his lips, “And what use would you be of? I don’t suppose that you are requesting to work further with these children?” He holds his hand out and gestures to the hoard of kids.

“Yes, Takeo-sama,” Hideaki nods, “I am one of the best shikotsumyaku users this clan has to offer, and I have been involved in many of our glorious battles. I feel that it is time for me to take a step back and help with the next generation that will lead battles against foe and fiend.” 

“Consider your request accepted, Hideaki-san,” Takeo says, “This will be no easy task, I must remind you. Children are volatile things, small, but dangerous.”

They share a chuckle, and Takeo waves Hideaki towards the makeshift hallway.

“For the rest of you,” Takeo then begins again, eyes pointed at Yui, Tamami, and Hirokuni, “You can offer yourselves like Hideaki-san did, or you can go back home and enjoy the next three weeks off of the expectations as a shikotsumyaku warrior.”  
Heads kept down, no one speaks, anxiously shooting each other knowing looks. Tamami finally speaks.

“We appreciate your honorable gift to us, Takeo-sama.”

~~~

They are lead through the small opening in the wall, it is dark and dank and she swears that she smells rot and decay somewhere. It overpowers her small body for a moment, and there is this flash behind her eyes that startles her enough for her hand to cling to the nearest thing: Chinatsu's bare arm.

Chinatsu hisses, snapping her teeth at Tsukiko. "Get off," she snarls lowly and shoves her to the side. Tsukiko stumbles, and catches herself before she hits one of the sleek walls, but her body is small and so are her teeth and she just knows the mirrored snarl she sent Chinatsu's way was not as scary as she initially thought it would be.

The hall is long, and Hideaki moves swiftly through them, peeking his head through nooks and crannies as if unaccustomed to these tunnels. That other woman strides behind them, with Takeo meandering at her side as she holds her head up high, sleek white hair in as much order as the control she has over her face.

They walk for a while longer, and there are small scratches in the limestone around them. Tsukiko thinks because of fights, but she also knows that maybe this is a man-made cave. Eventually, the hall expands into a large dome, the ground beneath her steeply falling down to the bottom of the massive basin, where little canals of water flow on the sides of the cavern, lanterns, and torches dimly lighting this vast expanse of area.

At the bottom, the structures of the stalactites becoming more defined and deep, a grim look to every crevice and a hollow and haunted sound echoing from somewhere high, somewhere where no being can reach with human fingers. There is a sense of realness that pushes the children from their mind, forcing them to look and to see what the world is really like, pushing and pulling like the Void keeping them still and telling them to look beyond the beyond because there is only so much more you can see before you close your eyes.

It tells of a story that only Tsukiko seems to have already known, the appreciation in such an exotic sight nothing more than glanced at with a passing thought. Maybe a small tether of remembrance, a hint of what once was a memory. Bad thoughts, bad thoughts, they can’t be around.

Someone clears their throat, and all attention is on him. Of course, the grin stretches across their face, breaking the tense atmosphere into something not real anymore.

“Welcome to your new home, children,” Takeo snides, stretching an arm out to the vast expanse of cave, “I’m sure you’ll just _love_ it here.” 

~~~

They train. And train. And train.

All they do is train. 

They train in various ways: fighting, stretching, conditioning, swimming. Somehow, they always find a way to break flesh and spill blood. It isn’t long before the once scentless odor of the cave slipped away and turned foul, a certain reek in the air that is a mix of sickness and rot, of the feeling of hunger just above your stomach and aches in your joints.

It isn’t pleasant. Tsukiko tries to spend as much of her time in a mental lock, hidden just behind her eyes as they show them again how to bring down a man three times your height. But it isn’t easy when the first thing she does in the morning is the nigh ritualistic drowning she and the others take part in.

The water was once heavy, dragging her limbs down in a forever spiral into oblivion that is almost unreachable, but now it is only an inconvenience to her gurgled screams and slaps of water against baby flesh and fat.

She is reminded she is only four when she achieves the potential of the moon.

There is no time in the caves, but she knows it is too early when she is tossed into the deepest stream the system has to offer, the water slick and her breath taken habitually just before she breaks in. It is cold, and rough, the smooth swirls transformed into thin crystals as the night still rages above the thick walls that divides them from the world, slicing through skin and breaking through the blood that weeps.

A silent howl breaks the air, thunder rolls through the earth, bones bend and eyes are torn. Bleeding, aching, cold. She is freezing. Trembling under water.

Breathe.

She has to breathe.

_Breathe!_

Water flows into her mouth and nose, she can’t see. Suffocating. Blinded. It’s death again, the cold seeps down her spine washing her in a cold shower of ice slicing veins and breaking the flesh, sapping her energy like a fountain that only takes and never gives. It’s death again, she can’t die like this. Not again.

Her arm shoots out, grasping for the air, grasping for something intangible. Everything pulls at her, taking and taking and letting her fall deeper into the darkness that swallows at her heart and soul. Not again.

Not again.

Not again.

The metal swirls in her mouth, painting the water red. She is one with the mother. She is one with the moon.

She doesn’t know when she wakes again, bones creaking, mouth sour, flesh sticky and red. 

It hurts to breathe, to expand her lungs and to bring in the salted air. No longer is she in the freshwater rivers situated in the central caves, but she has been brought up to the sealine, where the reeds brush up against soft calloused flesh and catch into loose hair. There is a hand tangled at the back of her neck, and she leans over the grey water, the dark sky blocking out the sun. 

Tsukiko does not know how she got here, who stands behind her, and why she isn't in the cave. No one has told her about this, no one has prepared her for the incredible heat the unseen sun brings.

“Easy up, Tsukiko-kun, easy,” the voice mutters just below her ears, as if she were just some fallen beast struggling to gather itself back up, “That was quite the adventure, yes?”

She can only manage a gag, swallowing down the scything comments forming in her throat. The hand pats down heavily on her back.

“It’s not going to get any better from here,” he starts, “You have unlocked the moons grace, you know, Tsukiko-kun. Such an ability to wield your own structure is a blessing in on itself. It shall never be taken from you, it shall never leave you.”

The tears well in her eyes, “Why,” she croaks, voice sour and bitter. “Why.”

“Because, young one,” he tells, “It is what the moon has chosen for you.”


End file.
